Blurred Lines
by Dont.call.me.Carrie
Summary: In which all the tampering with time and space left the lines between universes smudged between reality and fiction. Or, in which Martha Jones replaces John Watson. Cue divergences. [I do not own anything related to BBC and/or its affiliates]
1. Aftermath: Moments Later

[I do not own in any way, shape or form, any of the BBC-affiliated television shows mentioned or referenced below.]

Walking away was both harder and easier than Martha had expected [ _she suspects that the last of the wanderlust that would've tempted her into staying on was burned out right around Japan, but she doesn't want to think about it_ ]. She'd meant every word of it, of getting out, and having people to care for. And so without further ado, she opened the door, entered, and closed it, as if it was just another day. [ _She ignored how the gate closed with a clang that sounded unnervingly like a Toclofane tearing through a rusted car several dozen yards away._ ] She smiles at her mother as she walks in, and they all hear the grating noise that the TARDIS makes, as it heads out into the unknown. Martha is acutely aware of what is to follow in his wake, and sure enough, UNIT contacts them about debriefing about the events of the Year. [ _Everyone involved silently agreed that it merited the capitalization._ ]

Leo is the one to call them; they'd planned on calling him to break the news to him, but he's very confused and wants to know if his family's okay, because he came back from his walk and heard his entire family was under suspicion and " _possibly called in by MI5 on charges of terrorism, what was going on, and were they okay?"_ Martha's the one who tells him, stony-faced and focused on a very interesting part of the ceiling [ _the paint's a bit chipped, how did she not notice that?_ ], and answers his questions. She felt guilt over having possibly been the reason [ _she_ _knew_ _she was the reason_ ] for the Master's interest in her family. [ _She knows it's not her fault, but. She was so, so sorry, and damn if that didn't make her sound like the Doctor._ ]

—-

Jack finds her, not long afterwards. It had taken him less than four minutes to find a Martha Jones, living in London, and with an interest in the medical field, when he'd gotten back. He'd also seen the irony of the Doctor taking on a medical student, and couldn't quite smother the [ _semi-hysterical_ ] laugh that erupted when he'd seen how close she'd been to residency when he'd they'd barreled into her life. He called her up as soon as reasonably possible, and invited her out for drinks if was ever in Cardiff. It soon becomes a habit to call each other, especially after the nightmares. And that's how he finds out.


	2. Aftermath: The Group Debrief

UNIT called the Jones family shortly after the Doctor had left, and gave them a [ _very short_ ] list of vetted psychiatrists and professionals, as well as a crash course on nondisclosure via the ream of paperwork that accompanied the disaster that was the Year and interaction with the Doctor. They get debriefed, both as a family and individually. They would have been recorded, if Tish hadn't noticed Section III line 58, or filed the according form. It is at this point when Martha's trust in UNIT's intentions drops. [ _She had worn ruthlessness like a cloak at times during the Year, was also comfortable with realpolitik: she'd also worked with some unsavory people along the way, and knew how they operated. And so, when she sees UNIT's mechanics, and the way morality was a factor but could still sometimes fall by the wayside, her guard went back to her new normal: a bright smile and acutely aware of the knife in her boot_.]

(In another life, Tish didn't notice, their casefile would get archived and forgotten, and Martha wouldn't lose faith in UNIT until after the Earth got stolen.)

The group interview of the Valiant's captives lasted several hours; they staggered through having to describe seeing the world become unrecognizable before their eyes, all the while grabbing each others' hands in a white-knuckled grip. The therapist provided is visibly torn between trying to not to force them to relive too much, and trying to gather as much information as possible. No one wanted history to repeat itself, after all. Martha is mostly silent, only speaking up to clarify the details the rest missed, as everyone recounted what they remembered aboard the Valiant:

"I had plenty of help- sometimes it was the locals who helped me hide, other times it was soldiers who provided backup. Korea was… well. Funny story, that." [ _Well, funny to her at least, but black humor was sometimes the only thing that kept her from breaking. She'd already had some practice via overhearing stuff in her rotations, but now she completely understood why the Bob and Ryan in the EMS bay had cracked the jokes they had._ ] And the route to Busan had been an interesting trip, to say the least. The former DMZ had actually been one of the safest places on Earth that she could name, right alongside the ruins of Caracas. [ _Oh the irony._ _No._ ]

"We were taken to the bridge and forced to watch them destroy the islands." Clive said, visibly a few inches from breaking. Tears silently slid down his face.

"Japan burned because Griffin took out the perception filter, the Master hadn't noticed until then, because that's how the filters work." Martha muttered in as bored of a tone as she could manage. It had actually been terrifying, but she didn't want to relive the incident more than once, and she knew that she'd have to take care of the paperwork for this mess [ _thank you, pragmatism, for keeping me alive and sane_ ].

"There were several mass graves, but most cities burned with their dead." And left more space for the Working Fields; Russia had a monopoly on size, but Mexico's silver mines meant that a disproportionate number of factories were centered around the former Distrito Federal. Tlalnepantla had been crowded, to say the least; whereas Boston was simply erased, with its survivors either in hiding or captured and shipped to nearby Fields [ _a tiny voice wanted to snark about how even the Toclofane must've hated its road system to have put so much effort in obliterating it, but she kept her mouth shut_ ].

"The Master said he'd put a bounty on Martha's head, for a while, until he got bored and then-well. You know." Francine stated blankly, eyes unfocused.

"I had more than a few close calls. See this burn? Got it evading some of the ravagers- rumor was floating around for several months, double rations for bringing me in. Molotov cocktails can be made with a bottle of old perfume, by the way." She kept her face as impassive as possible, and rolled her sleeves back down to hide the small silver scar.

"We didn't know the plan. Your people knew as much as we did, when Martha was brought in. I was so scared, I- I thought the order for capture might've been dead or alive, and- and then the thing with the gun, and how did you two do it, I saw him whisper something, but this was insane!" Tish bit out around near-silent sobs, shoulders shaking.

And so it went.


	3. Aftermath: The Individual Debrief

Leo was called in separately, he later told Martha. She hadn't seen him when they were recalling the Year [ _it made sense, though; he hadn't been in the Valiant_ ]. His interview was the shortest: the only thing he had to report was an outing with his wife and child, followed by his confusion at seeing constables camped out around his car in the parking lot, accompanied by mass confusion as their radios report an update of a group detainment warrant being rescinded, only to be replaced by a summons from UNIT.

—

Martha's parents didn't say much about what happened in their respective interviews. Neither did Tish. If Martha hadn't either, she would have noticed it for the warning sign it was. As it was, she was more concerned about worrying about forgetting the people that had made the entire thing more bearable, even if they didn't really exist anymore. [ _From the arms dealer who'd taught her how to take apart everything she'd had in her stash while lamenting how they only worked on humans instead of Toclofane, to Korea's Resistance forces in general, and she could never, ever forget Tom._ ]

—

Martha's individual interview is the longest; at Ground Zero, she talks for hours about walking the world, and her desperate mission all the while. The people in the room are very professional throughout the whole thing, for all that it really isn't a pleasant interview. But she does her best, with the same exact tone and delivery she'd had when talking to former drug lords and scavenger gangs on five hours of sleep. [ _She'd had to match ice with ice to gain their respect, and only later on warmed as she repeated the stories once again._ ]

[ _Martha gets a sinking feeling about how her psych eval will turn out._ _Part of her wondered why she even cared._ _She knew that even during the Year, she'd unnerved people when she went from warmly telling stories about the Doctor while performing a tachometry, to coldly shooting one of the Master's Searchers within the same hour. But she simply couldn't afford to do anything else,_ _if she'd broken at any point,_ _well. It never happened, so why bother thinking about it?_ _But now she couldn't stop thining about it, or compartmentalizing, and-_ _training told her it was a very bad coping method, but she didn't care. At least she'd survived._ ]

—

Martha sipped the lukewarm mug of tea in her hands. Focused on seeing the reactions of the people in the room. [ _See who acted more like Levi than Julianna, and watch them._ ] And started talking.

"UNIT fell really soon, during the Year. They'd fought back, and between that and the Master ordering the Toclofane to wipe them out, you can guess what followed…but their survivors were also a huge part of the Resistance. Like, they were the main people keeping it organized and running. Some areas were more intact than others; I know that a…a Lieutenant General Sanchez was the one who was running things in the Americas, was the one who got guides for me when I was there. And Colonel Ishiguro was the branch leader in Japan for some sectors, had some contacts keeping an eye on the people chasing me. Like Griffin." They'd also looked so, so _worn_ when she'd glimpsed them. [ _She sympathized on more than one level, these days._ ] "Their networks also helped me in getting the word out. I did what I could, but their contacts in the local Fields were the ones who told the prisoners the stories."

"But UNIT wasn't the only one to help me, throughout the Year. Like, for some parts, I know it was the Russian mafia who helped get me through some of the hotter areas. They made no bones about it. And I think a drug cartel or two might've helped, in some areas. They had this," Martha sketched out a rough approximation of the faded decal on the walls she'd seen,"on their base." The first time one of them had approached her, she hadn't realized that it was a smuggler and not a soldier who'd offered help. [ _Finding out had been an…interesting experience, to say the least. But they were all right, at the time, and she was grateful for their help. Even if she also knew that it was their shared enemies that had bound them together._ ]

"The best hiding spots were in old smuggling places, I can tell because sometimes they hadn't completely cleared out the cocaine or Semtex." That had come in handy, more than once, Martha mused absently before continuing, "Or places where human trafficking had probably existed, but we didn't talk much about that. Didn't have the time." Most had been ransacked, anyway. But she had remembered seeing the reports about hotspots in the news about it Before, and between that, and some of the more scarred mens' neck tattoos, it wasn't too hard to put the pieces together.

"No, they did some- some sweeps, and sometimes they played with us. Gada had a few scars, because someone'd shot the Toclofane attacking her and got its interest. And when I was there, Raiden was suicidal, pulled a pin. Shame it didn't work, but we got away." He'd been very kind, and courteous and warm- then his sister had died on the last raid to get supplies, and [ _She could've done something_ ] things happened. A part of her was nearly thankful that the Toclofane had been so childishly cruel- the way they'd toyed with their victims was horrifying, but also sometimes [ _rarely_ ] gave them a chance to escape.

—

Her scars get recorded as [ _Martha tries not to think too much about them. She'd never been much of a fan of pools anyway_ ] as she tells the stories behind them. She is inordinately proud of how few there were, and Before, her tone would have shown it far more than it does now.

"This beauty, I showed earlier. Bounty on my head, not many allies in that last stretch by the sea, and _still_ managed to make it clear of the continent. Molotov cocktail with perfume, had some issues getting the fuse right." That had been a small one, but the shrapnel hadn't hit her and she hadn't been burned too badly. Second-degree, at worst.

"In Japan, I stumbled upon an encampment of aliens who'd been preparing to take over before the Master did what he did. The Drast had a field that hid them, the entire community. It also shorted out my perception filter, and when they found me, decided that… a bit of torture was the thing to keep my quiet, I guess. The didn't get very far, though. Griffin was still chasing me, got me out." [ _The irony was nearly tangible._ _No._ ]

"These ones," she gestured towards the latticework that decorated her back and coiled around her stomach, "Got captured, right around Indonesia. The local Searchers had these whip things, which had excellent reach. My group all got captured, and we were put in the Fields pending identification. I managed to escape after a few days with some luck," and a perception filter, "but typically once you're in, it takes months to figure out a way to get out." [ _And hadn't that been terrifying._ _What if-_ _No._ ]

She'd had so, so many close calls. [ _A part of her wanted to cry, to scream that it wasn't fair. She was 22, had been over halfway through medical school. She should have been out drinking with Julia and commiserating over Dr. Stoker's attitude towards the students, or- anything else, really._ _She was so, so tired._ _No._ ]


	4. Aftermath: Behind Closed Doors

Note: due to formatting issues, please pretend that the underlines are actually strikethroughs. What's in the brackets is basically Martha's POV from a slightly different perspective, and the emphasized ones are thoughts that she's conflicted about.

Martha honestly, legitimately **_tried_** , at the therapy sessions, but. But she couldn't. They were vetted by UNIT [ _and she couldn't quite shake off that niggle of paranoia that whispered in her ear_ ], and while they were good at their job, it was also very obviously their _job_ , not their _passion_ [ _like the way Martha had hoped to become a doctor for_ ], and for someone who had spent the better part of a year evading people who were of the 'just doing their job' mentality, it wasn't—well. It wasn't.

During their sessions, Martha knew that they weren't really interested in the people she'd known, and while the pragmatic part of her understood why [ _it's never going to happen anymore, those people won't exist, so why bother, they're only human_ ], she still can't quite reconcile that with her sudden panic about forgetting anyone during the Year, for all that she was advised that it was the 'healthiest thing to do'. Most of the things discussed in her sessions were more pertinent in a report than they were for counseling, but Martha just couldn't quite close the past year like a chapter in a book, and she refused to forget anyone she'd met. Between the dispassionate air of the one in charge of her situation, and what she remembered of her psych classes, she just— couldn't.

The attitude at home didn't help.

Because her family refused to talk about it, whenever therapy or the like came up. They didn't want to talk about the Year, and focused on the here and now with an obsession that was not unlike a man trying to find an oasis in a desert. Francine refused to schedule any sessions with any of the UNIT-provided psychiatrists, Clive apparently preferred late-night introspective silences while staring into his cup of tea, and Tish didn't seem like the sessions did her any good, either. Martha had her suspicions, but she hoped it was just paranoia on her part. But as time went on, she couldn't ignore the signs.

—

Maybe UNIT had thought distance was a reasonable idea, but all she could think about was how alone she felt [ _and the way it was a deja vu to 1914 nono_ _NO_ ]—she sucked in a breath between her teeth. Straightened her shoulders. And focused on the page detailing who the witness could and couldn't talk to about the events in the aforementioned incident report. [ _She had an idea of what UNIT thought about her family, and if her suspicions were right, then they'd essentially been delegated to a casefile, and that thought both rankled and—no._ ]

Martha was the one in charge of taking care of the paperwork, in her family. 'And,' she thought with a dry not-quite-a-laugh-nor-a-sob, 'the only one stable enough to do it.'

Everyone had thought it prudent to live together for a while. And that's how Martha had noticed.

Because the Jones family was not doing as well as it seemed.

[ _In another life, Martha would have returned to her flat and checked up on them via phone calls, and UNIT would have remained a more solid presence. Their recovery would have been agonizingly slow, and they would never quite return to normal. Leo would have been slightly estranged, and he would not have completely believed their story until he'd seen Martha's scars. Even then, he would never quite realize the magnitude of what had happened, and would drift apart as the years went on._ ]

Martha was the one the family turned to the most, after the first time her father screamed at 1:24 A.M., and she'd had to convince him that no, what he'd seen in the yard wasn't a Toclofane that escaped, but a grey balloon that the seven-year-old down the street had lost after his birthday party on a windy day.[ _Martha was used to putting up an unfazed façade, and internalizing everything, now. She'd had no alternative. She didn't know when the last time she'd cried was_ _and a part of her was scared because of it_ _. But she simply couldn't_ ** _stop_** _._ ]

And so, in the following weeks, Martha lived with her family, and got acutely acquainted with how deep some unseen scars ran. [ _She had talked to UNIT, and managed to get them to arrange for her to take a brief break from school, citing a family emergency. She still didn't trust them, but they had undeniable resources. And she_ ** _still_** _had paperwork to finish._ ]

It was with a medical student's perspective that Martha noticed the way her mother only really got out of bed for a shower and food [ _depression, most likely_ ], or that her father had increasingly severe agoraphobia [ _refused to go out the house, sometimes afraid to look out the window_ ].

However, it was with a survivor's perspective that she noticed the way that Tish took to carrying a bottle and a knife around [ _not a bad combination, per se, but she herself used it to sterilize wounds, not for drinking_ ], and that Leo still didn't quite believe them [ _the look in his eyes was very similar to that one ravager gang that would have delivered her to the nearest Searcher station, if she hadn't managed to parkour out of that particular sector_ ], even despite having seen some of Martha's scars, whenever he stopped by. [ _He hadn't been with them then, and he was too busy with his own wife and daughter to be able to help them out more now. They didn't blame him, but it did make things awkward between them._ ]

Martha, meanwhile, found that she hid her particular issues alarmingly well; even though she woke tangled up in clammy sheets, a scream strangled behind her lips, and tended to rise with the sun and still slept lightly enough to wake up and comfort whoever it was that was nursing a mug of chamomile at midnight, she still noticed the furtive-but-jealous glances, and could easily imagine the accusatory _'why aren't you like us?_ ' hidden in them.

Then again, no one really noticed that she carried a messenger bag that was now as much of a constant for her as the Doctor's screwdriver had been for him. [ _She felt restless without it; not naked, but uneasy, as if she was walking backwards in one of the most crowded streets in London._ ] It served as a pillow, and she only ever really removed it when she took one of her icy five-minute showers. [ _And tried not to think of how much of a target she was while doing so, especially when washing her hair._ ]

No one noticed the battered journals she scribbled in whenever she had the time or inclination to do so, hidden beneath the piles of paperwork UNIT had left her family to fill out, either. Because Martha recalled what the Doctor had done in when they were in 1914 [ _and firmly tried to repress everything else, because that was a bad time to be anything other than white or male,_ _thank you oh so very much Doctor_ ], bought a leather-bound journal, and started to write. The pages slowly but steadily fill with the stories she's terrified of forgetting [ _but no one would care if she did_ _because it never happened_ ]. Some bad sketches of the wastelands she'd seen, and faces also cropped up every so often. [ _And amidst it all, every day, the bone-deep urge to just walk out the door and never return, never look back, because she'd been walking for so long and she was so tired but a part of her still didn't want to_ ** _stop._** ]

Martha didn't mention it to anyone. A very large part of her wanted to, but then remembered that UNIT would probably take it, and no one who read it would really care about the way John had been so polite with everyone, had acted like the epitome of what it meant to be British with a stiff upper lip [ _and still somehow able to procure tea even in the middle of Afghanistan, something she_ ** _still_** _hadn't figured out_ ]. No one would care about Marianna, who'd helped her persuade one of the scavenger groups in Nicaragua to spread the story of the Doctor as much as possible, and then collapsed a building with a few well-placed pipe bombs to cover their theft of a boat, or huge but gruffly warm Andrei, who'd taught her the best ways to make herself a weapon when none were available, for all that she hadn't wanted to learn at first. [ _Then Martha'd seen the moaning and whimpering shell of a person that one of the Toclofane left behind, too far gone to be able to survive without being rushed to surgery, and the only humane option left had her retching and shivering miles later. She still saw it in her nightmares._ ] The journals were for the people she didn't want to forget, because the reports she had to fill out took care of the rest.

—

Martha was poring over yet another stack of paperwork [ _at least it wasn't in triplicate this time_ ] when her phone rang. She couldn't quite help but frown; everyone who had her number was either in the same house as her, or aware that she had a family emergency. She braced herself, and hit the green icon. "Hello? Who is this?"

"Hello! This is Captain Jack Harkness speaking. Would I happen to be speaking to a certain Martha Jones?" The familiar voice asked, and Martha's shoulders relaxed.

( ** _In another life, UNIT's presence would have made Jack just a bit more hesitant to call, and between that, and the rocky relationship that Torchwood had with UNIT at times, Martha wouldn't have started to open up enough for him to realize what wasn't being said. At least, not in time_** **.** )

"Why, hello, Jack. How've you been?"

And so started their habit of calling each other. Martha hadn't really heard of Torchwood until, well, the mess with her cousin at Canary Wharf [ _Adeola had named her as the next-of-kin in her will(!) because her own parents were dead, and apparently she'd been the other responsible one in the family_ ] when she'd had to help make funerary arrangements, and then there was that fiasco with the Year, and…[ _No._ ]

But Martha had noticed that there was friction between Torchwood and UNIT. It was mainly subtle, but she still got the gist between the sheer professionalism that Jack treated anyone from UNIT who hadn't been on the Valiant, or the entire subsections dedicated to other organizations in the paperwork. So she took care and discretion in calling Jack. [ _The Hub also had a very secure line, which helped immensely, even if UNIT wasn't monitoring them to that extent._ ]And that's where things started to come apart.

 **(** ** _In another life, Martha's trust in UNIT, along with the weeks without contact, would have put her at a bit of an impasse regarding Jack.)_**

 ** _AN:_** being crossposted to AO3 and tumblr. If you want to reach me, I'm mynormalisnotyournormal, and for anything related to this 'verse, check my 'blurred lines' tag.


	5. Aftermath: Behind Closed Doors PtII

**Disclaimer:** I make absolutely no profit from this, and am merely playing with 'what ifs' in the Doctor Who universe.

 **Formatting Notes** : the bracketed parts are mental commentary, so if it sounds disjointed, it's because it was meant to be. Be aware that this includes intrusive thoughts, which won't be italicized like the rest due to formatting issues. [I originally wrote them with strikethroughs to show just how much Martha was Resolutely Not Thinking About It.]

 **Warnings for** : mentions of suicide ideation, clinical depression, PTSD, and similar trauma associated with, you know, the _apocalypse._ This fic is handling the fallout of the Year That Never Was, which doesn't really bode well for the survivors. I don't think it's really touched upon in canon very much except for allusions and hints later on, and even those paint a not-very-nice picture of what happened for a family t.v. show like Doctor Who. [The sheer existence of the Osterhägen Key is a red flag, in my book, so.] Martha Jones is in a bit of a dark place, right now, though I promise it'll get better later on.

* * *

The first time Martha called Jack right after a nightmare, it was because she was the only one up [ _for once_ — _no._ ] and was burning to think about literally anything else.

* * *

Martha dialed, half-dazed, and only after it rang twice did she realize that she was calling someone after 11 pm, and quickly hit the red icon. Martha thought that was the end of it, but her phone started to vibrate immediately, with the words "Incoming Call" as a stark contrast to the rest of the screen and the darkened room.

She cringed and answered, an apology ready, when a solemn "You, too?" filtered though the speaker.

"Sorry, Jack, didn't mean to wake you."

"Oh, don't worry, Martha, I was filling out the incident report for Torchwood's latest case. Very…riveting."

"Still, sorry, shouldn't have—" but before Martha could think about something adequate, Jack decided to start the conversation he'd been hoping to have.

"No, seriously, Martha, I was working on _paperwork_. I _hate_ it. But Ianto gets on my case about it if I don't get to work, because ' _you're the head of this operation, Jack._ '" Jack didn't mention that a year ago, he would have put it off a week, but since he didn't want to relive the Year in his nightmares…

Martha was perceptive enough to read between the lines. "My sympathies. I'm the one who's doing it on my end, and why are some forms in triplicate and others need a magnifying glass for the fine print? At this rate, I'll get a crick in the neck or carpal tunnel, and I'm saying that as someone who's had practice. Interns are the ones who deal with this the most, you know, so. Yay, bureaucracy."

"You too? UNIT's about as bad as Torchwood when it comes to paperwork, I swear…"

[ _In another life, she wouldn't have had him on her contacts list at the time, and would have ended up alarming her father when he went into the kitchen and saw his daughter finishing off the last box of tea, when they'd had nearly half a shelf full of the stuff the day before._ ]

* * *

Over the next month, Martha and Jack started to call each other more and more often, taking the conversation as the unspoken permission to talk without judgement that it was. Be it at right after nightmares, or 'just because' at noon, it didn't matter as days went on. After one such call, she gave a tired smile and absently noted that her phone plan had been in anticipation of being on-call in a different form.

* * *

"Mum, do you want to talk to Jack? I'm about to call."

"Tell him I said hello." Francine Jones muttered, and turned back to her plate.

* * *

"…And I've been having issues with dry-cleaning, because some stains are bloody impossible to remove without it, but the ones who know that we deal with 'security and government work' can deal with the human bloodstains, but good luck getting Serpein fluids out of _anything!_ Like we don't already get weird looks as is…"

"When it comes to stains, how do you treat them? Do you do the baking soda thing? Because I have family that swore by it, and seawater's pretty effective for some fluids too…" [ _Thank you, Adeola, that had been a particularly life-saving lesson when she'd evaded that one Searcher team in Belarus with the-no._ ]

"Um… Martha? If you don't mind my asking, how exactly is it that you know this?"

"In what capacity? As someone who's done rounds at the A&E, as a female past puberty, or as someone who's had to deal with alien fluids courtesy of the Doctor?" [ _She wasn't going to think about the practice she'd had in the Year. She_ ** _wasn't_** _._ ]

A beat.

"…Err, right. No, I hadn't known about the baking soda thing. Would you mind elaborating?"

"So, you have to gauge the severity and age of the stain, and then…"

* * *

Martha's hopeful smile dimmed when her father declined anything other than a greeting when she offered to pass the phone to him. When his back was turned, of course. [ _She had to stay strong. She had to stay strong. Just keep walking. Just keep—_ ]

* * *

Martha and Tish were the only ones willing to leave the house, nowadays. [ _And if more than once, they returned smelling of alcohol, well._ ]

Martha didn't say a word about the way running took the edge off her restlessness, about the way she sometimes got the urge to just grab her bag and walk and get on a bus or train or plane and never look back. [ _She knew her family gave her worried looks, though, when the urge got stronger. And the wistfulness and almost-nostalgia when talking about walking the Earth was a strange, strange thing; she didn't want to know what Jack thought about it. She didn't want to think about it._ ] She didn't know when the last time she'd had a full, decent night of sleep.

When Tish returned from her own outings, she tended to smell strongly of cigarette smoke. She was also the one who pasted on a smile and pretended that no, she hadn't had a nightmare, even if the mug was cold in her hands as she stared out the window, the faint scent of chamomile lingering in the air.

Francine Jones spent more and more time in bed, asleep or simply curled up silently, and got agitated whenever anyone tried to do anything about it. [ _Martha tried not to think about symptoms of depression, and failed miserably._ ] Martha still stubbornly told her about her day, no matter how boring it'd been.

Her father would _not_ leave his spot on the sofa away from the windows for love or money, television chatter a soothing background noise after the first few days because he stuck to nature channels and classical music, nothing grey or overly shiny in sight.

* * *

"Remind me again as to how one's supposed to feign obliviousness?"

"Jack?"

"Torchwood Three is literally a fraction of what One had at Canary Wharf, but I _swear_ that we make up for it in drama."

"…It's the new one, isn't it."

"She has potential, I _know_ it, she reminds me of Rose—" He quickly cut off, and she heard him turn away from the receiver, with a quiet mutter of " _so stupid_ " where he thought the receiver wouldn't pick up, punctuated by an occasional _whack_.

Martha didn't grit her teeth. Or glare at anything. She surprised herself with the way she honestly didn't care anymore [didn't feel like she cared about anything, sometimes ** _NO_** ], actually.

"Sorry about that, Martha, rea—"

"Jack, don't. Just— mind telling me about her, for reference or anything? Because all I know is that she's blonde."[ _and amazing, and apparently would've solved all of the problems we were in a lot faster than her, but Martha doesn't care because she's not her._ ]

"Right, the Doctor, this one's…okay, from when I ran with him and Rose, she was kind and beautiful and funny. We met during World War II, I was an ex-Time Agent. We had a… minor fiasco, they saved my life. The Doctor wore a different face, then. You would've liked him, I think," he continued.

Martha could audibly hear how hard some of it was for him to talk about, and cut in again. [ _Time for another subject change._ ]

"Okay, thanks for that. So you mentioned that the new hire's got potential, and reminds you of Rose. What exactly is the problem?"

"The team is five-strong, we should _not_ be needing to have to use anything other than common sense in regards to relationships."

"…Don't tell me, one of them slept with one of the others, and now everything's weird."

"…"

Martha facepalmed, acutely aware of the way her phone's mic picked it up.

"Jack, believe it or not, media is not an accurate representation of _anything._ I am as emotionally awkward as any other person outside a pub, and while the shows would indicate otherwise, us doctors and nurses and associated medical staff do not actually date our coworkers while on the clock, and I honestly don't want to know what the others do off of it."

"I know, but I really like having an outsider's perspective for this mess. I mean, they're a good team, but this is getting ridiculous. I think I heard something about a prank war?" He sighed.

A distant crash was heard.

"Sounds like you're about to be very busy. Good luck, and call you later."

"Okay, I'll get back to you soon, take care, seems like I'm _babysitting_ for the moment…Owen! What are you doing with that?! Back away from the workstation, and put it back right now!"

* * *

Martha was convalescing from a year of being on the run, and Jack refused to seek out help, despite the madman's _creativity_ in exploring the properties of a living Fixed Point. So _of course_ nightmares were part of their conversations.

* * *

"Hello, Jack. Are you busy?" Martha's voice was just a bit too tight and blank for Jack to not be concerned.

"No, latest case was taken care of, paperwork's done and everything. Nightmare?"

"Among other things. Today was—" she didn't know what to say. [ _Not good? A series of unfortunate events? The perfect storm?_ ]

"Do you want to talk about it? Or…"

"I've been trying to get myself back into working order. Can't be a good doctor if I'm getting triggered by everything…Almost knocked out dad today, didn't hear him behind me, and between some of the things I picked up, and the ravager gangs, I—" she cut off abruptly, both in surprise at the fact that she'd actually said it aloud, and that she'd done it all in one breath.

"These past few days were all hopeful, no nightmares and I managed to sleep through our neighbor's morning routine for once. Then I scared dad, and it might've been Tish too, except I heard her." She continued, after a few carefully measured breaths.

"That's good, though. You controlled yourself enough to snap out of it…Do you want to talk about it, Martha?"

"Andrei's ex-KGB, he gave me a few pointers. I'm not great at it, but I held my own. And with a bounty on my head, some parts were more dangerous than others."

"…Wasn't the perception filter supposed to _help_?" Jack's voice didn't conceal his dawning horror very well.

"It got shorted out in Japan, been spotty ever since. And some people may not have noticed me personally, but dogs can still smell and tracks are more obvious than not in snow. It only takes one idiot blindly shooting into the fog for someone to get hit, you know." [ _Don't think about rolling to avoid being hit, and running to escape from the howling—_ ** _No._** ]

"And that was just the perfect way to start the day, wasn't it, because I knew what exactly I could've done to change it from a KO to a—" Martha squeezed her eyes shut, and slid down from the wall. "And then things happened, and next thing I know I'm running through Belarus all over again."

[ _She didn't want to talk about it. Some things needed to be said, though, and she'd rather it be with someone who could_ ** _understand._** ]

* * *

Several weeks had passed, and it felt as if every day of it had been spent pretending nothing was wrong.

Everyone had been studiously ignoring the crying at night. It had become almost a routine for Martha to slink into the room and hug the person in question, a quiet litany of "it's over, they're gone, you're safe, you're okay" for hours on end. [ _Unless it was her in the kitchen, after slipping in from a late-night run to evade the mechanical giggles ringing in her ears._ ]

Everyone also pretended to ignore the way Martha struggled to finish wrangling the paperwork in order, with Tish helping whenever she was up to it. Or of the way she went grocery shopping late at night [ _because she felt more comfortable walking alone in the dark than she did taking the Tube during daylight hours_ ], and tried so very hard to make sure her family was safe and sane and well-fed. Which proved to be a challenge due to everyone's incredibly varying appetites, because Clive rarely finished his meal, whereas Francine would slowly but steadily polish off whatever was on her plate whenever she had the energy to leave her bed.

Because everyone in the Jones family knew they were self-destructing, and it was tearing Martha apart to see it happen.

UNIT had offered to help, initially, but her family refused to have anything to do with them. And once the paperwork had been signed, and all the ink was dry on the non-disclosure agreements, they started to finally back off. Several hours of mandatory therapy with people who were chosen for their affiliation with UNIT and clearance levels rather than specializations, a series of debriefs and interviews and status reports, and life would be back to normal as soon as the allotted 'family emergency' time was up. Then, supposedly, everything would go back to normal. [ _Ha. As if._ ]

* * *

Things finally came to a head shortly after she finally got a copy of the psychological evaluations composed by UNIT and their small group of trained professionals.

The evidence she'd been trying to ignore in broad daylight was presented in impersonal black-and-white. However, she was less concerned about the 'trust issues' and 'paranoia' put into her file by specialists in forensic and military psychology and far, far more worried by the way she'd seen her father looking speculatively at the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. [ _And she'd never once breathed a word of just how tired she was. She knew it was a red flag, but she just…couldn't. The words caught in her throat, behind the same lump in her throat that held back her stories of everyone who'd saved her and helped her during the Year, whenever she wanted to tell any outsiders. And any mention of it would sound wrong, and it'd worry everyone, and—no._ ]

* * *

"Jack, I don't know what to do anymore, and I— I locked the medicine cabinet because of the way I saw dad looking at it, and I _don't know what to do anymore._ " Her throat was tight. [ _She'd cried in the shower, after she'd hidden the key._ ]

"I've tried to get them help, to keep them safe, but I **_can't._** I've gone through our psych eval reports, and between that, and what I've seen, I…"

"Martha…" Jack's tone was very, very careful. "I really don't recommend this, but…Retcon—we use it, when inexplicable extraterrestrial matters crop up, and the witnesses don't take it well. Typically means that we have to Retcon them, else they start to question their sanity, and it tends to go downhill from there."

"It erases memories?" Martha suddenly felt the floor surge beneath her.

"…Are you okay? You sound—"

"You've never mentioned this before."

"I only use it when I need to. Even then, _bad_ things can happen. Think evil-zombie-coworker-running-around levels."

"Huh. Okay; but…woulditbepossibletodoayear?"

"…Martha? Please tell me I misheard you, because I swear I heard—"

"Jack, they're civilians. You've met them, and they're not dealing with this well, they need help on a level that no one outside of the Valiant has clearance for, and anyone else inside of it doesn't have what they need, not really, other than you or me."

"What about the rest of UNIT? They're no Torchwood, of course, but…" And damn if they both couldn't smother a laugh at the irony of _Jack_ defending them to her.

"We all have full-blown PTSD, Jack. Even the psych evals say it, and we haven't exactly been model patients. I've _seen_ it. I've been living with them for nearly a month, and I'm seeing several nearly textbook cases of it. And on top of all that, they've- no, _we've_ all experienced a full year that, by all rights, never existed in the first place." Martha took a breath in lieu of a sob, then plowed on.

"Everyone else was aware of the risks when we signed on. I mean, UNIT's doing their own thing, I've heard about your first meeting with the Doctor, and even I knew that time travel could be…risky. But my family just got chucked into the fray, and…they're civilians."

"Martha, you're talking as if you aren't."

"Jack, I've run with the Doctor. I'm not you, I'm not UNIT, but I'm a medical student who's already had training in triage, and I also know the best way to stab someone, an idea of how to slip past country borders, and I've coordinated parts of the Resistance long enough to understand some of the jargon. My family's another story. UNIT's leave for us is about to run out, _and I don't know what to do anymore._ "

She heard a sigh.

A heartbeat, then another.

"You're sure about this?"

* * *

Martha discussed it with her family.

[ _She had expected a fight, even though she wasn't certain why, anymore. Maybe her mother would've been contrary, or her father, but this?_ ]

"You mean it'd be erased?"

[ _This was not what she had been braced for._ ]

"It was the Year from hell. I don't want it. I don't think anyone in this room does."

Her mother had been the first to agree, swiftly followed by her father. Tish was on the fence, but her face told Martha that she was leaning towards forgetting the Year.

Martha…couldn't. [ _For more than one reason._ ]

"Yes, it'd erase the Year. As long as your mind doesn't fight it too much. Some triggers can bring it back, though."

[ _Like scars._ ]

Passing mentions of the event, however, like the articles that still popped up about the legwork needed regarding the attempted assassination of the U.S. President, and the elimination of the Cabinet, were mostly safe.

Her family had been through emotional agony, but it had been Martha and Jack who had also been put physically through the wringer, and whatever it was that make Jack…himself also meant that he'd had no physical reminders after a good shower and a month's worth of healthy diet and exercise. Mentally, not so much, but physically, he hadn't changed a bit.

Martha, meanwhile, knew she'd be feeling some of the scars ache in the future. She'd been lucky, but. [ _She'd been lucky to survive at all, considering the Drast—No._ ]

"How soon can it be done?"

* * *

So it was settled.

The calculations were done, Martha and Jack came up with a cover story for Martha's scars and the family emergency [ _a car accident also conveniently explained her quiet aversion to the sound of metal tearing and—no_ ].

Martha would have to stay away from her family. She wasn't certain of how she felt about it. [ _For all that it was incredibly morbid, now was the time that she'd bonded the most with her sister in some respects. She hated the guilt about—NO._ ]

* * *

"Martha, why?"

Martha turned from where she'd started to pack her things. "I don't qualify, Tish. I don't think I'll trigger any of your memories, but every time I look in the mirror when changing…"

A quiet smile, followed by a warm hug.

[ _Martha ignored the part of her that screamed it wasn't fair, and railed about plastic surgery. It wasn't, after all…but she didn't want to forget some things. Like the kindness and warm strength some strangers had shown, for all that she would have happily erased other parts of the Year._ ]

* * *

UNIT was informed of her family's impending retrograde amnesia following a car accident officially, and via Torchwood intervention in actuality. They'd been disgruntled, to say the least, but had settled down after their liaison agent had been given highlighted, annotated copies of the Jones' psychological evaluations, and handwritten forms detailing their consent to the memory alteration.

With Jack's help, Martha managed to get everything in order and as normal as they could manage.

While he'd bribed Tosh into leaving records of a car accident that never happened, Martha made the requisite phone calls.

Separate phone calls were also made to ensure her family's employers knew that yes, the family emergency was mostly over.

* * *

"That's _impossible._ "

"Leo, can you pretend that it was just a normal day, or what?"

"You're telling me that our family's getting their memories erased."

"Only the traumatic ones from the past year. Basically, the entire year."

"Martha, this is…"

"I know."

"I don't know what happened, but was it really that bad, to—"

"Leo, **don't.** It was the Year from hell. Dad should be in suicide watch right now, by all rights. And don't get me started on mum, or how things get at night."

"And this was because of what again?"

"A madman with dreams of world domination…He's dead now."

Leo gave a low whistle through his teeth. "Bloody—okay, you know this is messed up."

"You think?"

"So I have to pretend you were in a car accident on the way back from the Lazarus presentation, and that the last month was normal by all rights, other than you having physical therapy."

"Leo, _thank you._ ** _"_**

* * *

Martha had been meticulous in erasing evidence of trouble in the Jones household. She binned the newspapers screaming about aliens, and any mentions of the Valiant, or arrests, and breathed a word of thanks that the next big story was about rumors of an upcoming royal wedding, and something about a flying ship. [ _She'd bet anything that the Doctor had something to do with it. She didn't want to know._ ]

The entire house was as aired out as Martha could manage, even if her father wasn't happy with the arrangement. The bottles of alcohol were bagged and taken to a recycling bin, or returned to the store with bribing to keep the dissidents happy. Tish and Martha teamed up for yet another shouting match with their mother to at least get up more often, and all the bedsheets in the household were cleaned.

She also scattered forged paperwork about her 'accident', and made sure to have evidence of an existence that had never been, from a hair tie left behind on the sofa, to some scuff marks from a set of crutches that never were.

[ _The lock on the medicine cabinet, however, would only be removed after she made sure they'd forgotten. Martha didn't want to risk it._ ]

* * *

Jack arrived on the weekend, three discreet doses of Retcon in tow.

He was greeted warmly by Martha, and varying levels of enthusiasm by the rest of the family. [ _Martha had warned him, but it was still a nasty shock to see them in such a state. He'd known that they were in a bad place, had bribed Tosh to get into UNIT files and taken a peek at the psych evals and everything, but seeing them…_ ]

And within the hour, after a final round of questions and reassurances and another set of handwritten letters saying that yes, this was what they wanted, three innocuous cups of tea sat before them.

[ _Martha wanted to cry when she saw her parents' eyes, and leaned against Jack when he squeezed her shoulder in support._ ]

" _Thank you._ "

And with that, Francine, Clive, and Tish Jones drank.

And promptly passed out as soon as they sat.

"…Jack?"

"We're dealing with over a year of memory tampering, this kind of thing takes a bit of time."

"Oh…Mind helping me move them? Because mum and dad didn't get along ever since before Annalise came into the picture."

"You really planned this out, didn't you."

She gave him a flat look. "I was one of the lead coordinators for the Resistance, especially for the last part of everything. What do you think?"

"That I've got a job offer, whenever you want it."

"Thanks, but maybe later. First, help me move dad. I can do it myself, but getting him to his flat and back is going to be tricky."

"You know, there's a saying. Friends help you move, best friends help you move…"

Martha didn't bother to stop her facepalm. " _Thank you_ , Jack."

But she had to admit, it did help lighten the mood. For the moment, anyway.

* * *

"Jack, you drive faster than some ambulance crews I know."

"Thanks."

"That is not a compliment." Martha gritted out as her hand squeezed what his team had called the "Why the Hell's He Driving Again" handle. The indents she felt didn't lend credence to his protests.

* * *

Clive Jones woke up from a nightmare that he didn't quite recall, before cursing as he checked his phone and realized that he would be late to work if he didn't hurry.

He didn't know why he flinched when he headed towards his car, but another glance at his watch had him focusing on beating traffic rather than worrying about something or other.

—

Leticia 'Tish' Jones woke up, and wondered why as she looked at her alarm clock. It hadn't been on for more than a minute, if that, and yet she had no urge to hit snooze and go back to bed.

Huh.

—

Francine Jones woke up, and was absently pleased to notice that she'd had a good night's rest. She didn't think anything of it, in much the same way some people don't think about their dreams when they have school or tests or work or taxes to worry about, and went on with her day.

* * *

Martha and Jack met up outside of a rather seedy-looking pub. In the past twenty-four hours, they'd managed to erase a year's worth of memories, and create an existence that never was. [ _To supplement the Year—no._ ]

—

"All in all, I'd say it went well."

A wry grin, a sardonic laugh.

"You think?"

They toasted each other with their respective drinks. Martha ignored Jack's raised eyebrow at the way she tossed back her shot. [ _She hadn't been one for drinking, Before, but she got a crash-course in appreciating the differences during her travels. A capo had been very proud of his wine collection, Raiden had taught her the best way to savor whiskey and she never did figure out how the hell John got his hands on those tea leaves in a world under martial law. Not to mention the varied uses of vodka, up to and including as a painkiller. And after the day she'd had? Ha._ ]

* * *

 **End Notes** : This entire arc [the Aftermath arc is what I mentally called it; how creative, I know] is laying the groundwork for the way both universes merged. There's one more chapter [hopefully; the conversations made this one balloon past what I'd planned] to go before the Sherlock part of the timeline shows up. This fic is also on AO3, and if you want to see meta or general musings and plans for potential timelines, I'm mynormalisnotyournormal on tumblr. [The Blurred Lines tag is what you'll want to see if you do.]

Also, I'm a premed undergrad student in a pretty competitive college, so odds are it'll be a while between chapters. If anyone wants to play with the premise, I'm all for it and please let me know, because I love Martha Jones fanfics.


	6. Carrying On I

**Warnings:** Post-Year That Never Was, so unhealthy coping mechanisms, mental health issues [including but not limited to PTSD], stuff associated with the fallout of an apocalypse [aka Year that Never Was], a panic attack, alcohol [won't become alcoholism, just its use in social interaction/recreation], VERY dark/morbid humor, and mentions of death [with heavily implied mercy killing mentions- during the Year that Never Was] towards the end.

 **Formatting Notes:** [ _thoughts/internal monologue_ ] [ _tr_ _yingveryhardnottothinkaboutsomething_ ]

* * *

Martha checked up on her family as much as she could without getting side-eyed for it. They looked…well. [ _Lighter shoulders when she visited, more relaxed in tone over the phone, far better than the Aftermath—no._ _Partofherfeltalmostjealous._ ]

Francine Jones' friends had been very worried, but relaxed and expressed their condolences as they heard her story of Martha's accident. Clive Jones, meanwhile, had the unenviable position of trying to make up with his girlfriend while doing the same. And Leticia Jones returned to work: there were rumors of a major wedding on the horizon, and her firm was one of the ones being considered for coordinating it, even despite/because of the way they'd managed the Lazarus gala. The fact that it'd gone smoothly, even when UNIT had gotten involved and her sister had been subsequently hospitalized, meant that it wasn't the black mark it could have been on her record.

Leo, meanwhile, just stared at his family incredulously when he saw them next. He'd known, intellectually, that his sister had been serious about what she'd said about memory tampering, but it was one thing to discuss it over the phone after he'd finally made the baby go to sleep and another to see his parents so, so different from when he'd left them last.

However, as time went on, he did his best to put that behind him; which was easy enough as time went by, between his daughter growing up, work, and his parents smiling when not glaring daggers at each other.

Martha Jones simply went back, and set to tackling the backlog of rotation hours, work, and other detritus of medical school. [ _Anything to keep the momentum going, anything to help her work past the familiar faces on now-unfamiliar people._ ]

She tried to go back to normal. [ _Honest._ ]

.

It…didn't quite go according to plan.

* * *

For one, was the explanation for her hiatus from medical school: for all she'd mostly kept to herself Before, the news that she'd been in an accident still spread like wildfire.

It made sense in retrospect; it'd been several weeks since she'd been seen, and rumor had it she'd been one of the ones caught up in the whole disappearing Royal Hope fiasco. The cane she'd been sighted with did not help matters. [ _She'd needed some support after spraining her knee when moving her family after the Retcon. Trying to discreetly move three unconscious bodies in a hurry, especially when several flights of stairs were involved, meant something had to give. In this case, Martha's knee, just after dropping her father off at his flat._ ]

But overall, Martha tackled life one day at a time. [ _Anything else felt like drowning, for all that she didn't need to worry so much about her family's safety_ _anymore. Sometimesshefeltsoveryalone—_ _no._ ]

* * *

Martha's first day back was marked with a rapid uptick in stares.

.

She ended up having to leave early, that time.

Being in close quarters where familiar faces kept making double-takes and whispers and rude questions was hard enough even if she really had suffered an accident, never mind having to scale back her responses and reactions to unexpected stimuli. [ _The slam of a door, and the gait of a new security guard for one of the pediatrics wards, had her controlling her breaths and trying not to reach for one of her knives. A year of being hunted was hell on_ ** _anyone's_** _nerves, really._ _Itshould **not** bethishard—_ _no._ ]

And having to talk with administrators and doctors about logistics was taxing enough as is, never mind her newfound limits regarding social interaction outside of professional settings and unfamiliar circumstances.

.

Back at her tiny flat, Jack called her late in the evening.

.

"So, how'd it go?"

"As well as can be expected."

"Ooh," he cringed, "…that bad?"

"Well, it's not like I can just say 'classified' when everyone thinks I just had the 'accident', and some were still wondering about the Judoon thing, and Marcus from Cardio saw Tish's name in the report on the Lazarus mess. I got asked as many questions in that first hour alone, whenever we were between cases."

"Well…It's a hospital." Jack pointed out, the mock disdain practically dripping from each syllable.

"Our rumor mill isn't _that_ bad…I think…Actually, I dunno, everyone's said I don't get out nearly enough," Martha said wryly, "of course, most of them weren't med students, the ones that were simply said I needed to unwind more after exams."

"But I take it it went well?"

"I had to leave early, because…well, you know. It wasn't…as bad as expected, but still more than I felt comfortable with. I used the 'still recovering from the accident' card, they couldn't really argue with that. Err… _Mostly._ "

"Who tried?" More concern than humor, that time.

"Some of the personnel are pretty old-school. Doctor Stoker was quite the character, back before the thing with the Plasmavore and Judoon, for example. And some consider med students to be of lower tier in the hierarchy, which isn't exactly unusual in some circles, so they expect a certain level of deference and the like. And...okay, I sort of get it, but it's kind of hard to play the same game when you've talked with former generals and the like, you know?"

He sighed. "Yeah, I've been there. Kind of jarring, going back to the old routine, right?"

"I think I might've also jarred _them_. We had to talk logistics and my catching up with everyone else because of my 'accident', and I think I might've caught some of them off guard because I apparently didn't use civilian terminology for some of it? Had to excuse it with having family in the business." [ _Adeola_ ** _had_** _been Torchwood One, it wasn't exactly a lie._ ]

"Well, good luck with _that_ , then. I think I still have some of the team on my end convinced I'm ex-military."

"Jack, I'm sorry to break it to you, but the way you dress isn't exactly much help. That lovely coat of yours, for instance. Oh, and _maybe_ the gun has something to do with it."

"Thank you for not knocking my fashion sense, and yes, you might just have a point with that. But it's not like there's any of the other hints that they pick up on, or anything."

"I'm always right, didn't you know?" Martha replied airily. "So…how's life on your end?"

"Well, like I said, the team's speculating again about my history. Should be interesting to see what they come up with, it's always good for a laugh…"

* * *

Martha hadn't realized just how much she'd changed, in some respects.

Then she'd do her laundry and realize that she hadn't worn her once-favorite shirt in weeks, and that the brightest thing she could stand were scrubs, and even then she'd be gripping her new cane with white knuckles whenever someone slammed the doors. [ _At least she wasn't hiding a flinch whenever she saw anyone in uniform, anymore._ ]

Speaking of which, she got tired of that conversation after the second time she'd had it in less than an hour. It was nearly rote by now:

"I'm sorry, but what's with the cane?"

"I was in an accident recently, just got released last week from surgery for the worst of it." [ _Or so the paperwork would say. Tosh had gotten a box of Belgian chocolates as thanks, because UNIT's PR department was well-versed in some things but not nearly as much in others. Specifically, they were great at controlling widespread intel flow, but not so much when it came to individuals._ ]

"Oh, sorry."

Of course, there were always the ruder people who insisted that she was 'too young to need a cane'. [ _Ha. She'd never felt older than when seeing the earnestness on their faces._ _Didsheeverlooksocarefree?_ ] But mostly, people heard 'accident', saw the still-healing scars that peeked out from the shirt she'd forced herself to wear [ _she'dlikedshortsleevesBefore,shewasn'twillingtolettheYearaffectherinthisway,notwhenit'dalreadycosthersomuch._ _She was getting a grip on it, or so help her—_ ], and piped down after getting their curiosity sated.

Truth of the matter was, she legitimately needed it.

On the good days, it was for purely psychological reasons, so that the press of crowds didn't make her feel claustrophobic and short of breath and several heartbeats away from lunging out of the nearest exit, be it window or door. [ _And Martha felt antsy when she was in a crowd and unarmed, nowadays. Finding a sword cane instead of a regular one was relatively easy, after having run with smugglers and arms dealers for months. And it was disguised tastefully enough to pass casual inspection; anyone who noticed could be directed to her shiny new card from UNIT, too. If they wanted to stay in contact, then might as well take advantage of those connections, right?_ ]

On the bad ones, her body reminded her that the Year's needing her mobile didn't mean that it hadn't extracted its pound of flesh. Thunderstorms, Martha soon found [ _fortunately, only the really vicious ones that reminded her of the monsoons that'd helped cover her tracks in Australia, not the more common ones_ ], were preceded by a low, insistent ache in some of the scars that had needed more than burn salve. Specifically, the ones that'd had her limping through Indonesia with her guide, which were concentrated in the lower abdominal area. [ _She'd known, intellectually, how important back muscles were for walking around, but it was one thing to know and another to feel shooting pain because she'd crouched the wrong way and needed to lean on walls to straighten back up. That had been a very rough fortnight, and arduous journey across the Pacific._ ] So, on bad days, it was cramps and aches; her cane served to keep her moving as fast as she'd gotten used to.

.

Suffice it was to say, Martha's new cane became a familiar sight at the Royal Hope Hospital.

* * *

Unfortunately, that was only one way it became obvious Martha Jones was not normal. [ _Not anymore, if ever. She'd been brilliant before, but now it was easier for everyone to_ ** _notice_** _._ ]

* * *

Joe Bloggs in room 4B had been admitted with superficial lacerations, a high temperature, and his chart had mentioned a high possibility of OD. He'd been glassy-eyed and hadn't given so much as his name when admitted, but hadn't been combative.

( _At the time, anyway._ _)_

Martha was in the room when Joe Bloggs started to hallucinate. She saw the way he tensed, his eyes widening, and managed to wrench the nurse back from his wild swipe. It was only a knee-jerk reaction to block the next punch, and as the security guard rushed in after hearing the racket the tray made when it hit the wall, she prevented him from ripping out his IV, or reaching for anything that could be improvised as a weapon. For her, that meant anything within reach. [ _Hopefully, nobody'd ask why she thought the bedsheets fit into this category— she'd used rags as both bandages and makeshift garrotes too much to think otherwise._ ]

A few minutes, a truly improvised Kimura armlock, and some bruises later, the patient was restrained. Martha limped out of the room, ears still ringing from Bloggs' yells of "keep those away from me!" and nursing a sore wrist courtesy of an incredibly wild kick. Even so, however, she'd have to be blindfolded to not notice the curious stares.

* * *

It was an incredulous "You _knew_ that Joe Bloggs was going to do that, I saw you pulling Johnson away… How did you know?" that set off the volley of questions.

"Wait, you—"

"When did you learn kung-fu, mate?"

Martha gave a short sigh. She felt acutely aware of everyone's attention on her, and readjusted her grip on her cane to hide just how close she was to running. Then, after a few carefully measured breaths, a quick glance at nearby exits [ _second floor with a nearby window, mostly unblocked; hallway to staircase, with a group blocking it—window route optimal_ ] she replied. "You mean you didn't see him tensing? Huh…looks like those karate lessons I took in high school actually paid off." [ _Please let them buy it._ ]

"You took _karate?_ " [ _Whew, that shut them up quite nicely._ ]

"Yes, it just hasn't come up recently." [ _No need for them to know it'd been a very brief thing, before school ate up her free time, or that she'd used a bastardized version of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Krav Maga instead. No need at all._ ]

"Wow, Martha—you've been holding out on us, I'm impressed. Want to talk about it over drinks this Thursday? We have a game of 'weirdest thing on shift', you'd make a killing."

"Sorry, Scott. I have work to catch up on."

A sympathetic wince. "So soon, even with the accident? _Harsh_ …well then, good luck, mate."

The small crowd dispersed, and Martha let her shoulders relax from their tight line as she made her way to the nearest bathroom. She managed to lock herself into a stall before she started to break down. [ _No. You're safe. No one out here wants your bounty. You don't even have a bounty anymore, Martha. Breathe. In. Out. The Year's over. In. Out. Keep it together, still four hours left on shift. In. Out. You've done worse, seen worse. In. Out. Keep it together. Just keep walking. In. Out. Loosen your grip on the sword cane, Martha. In. Out. One foot in front of the other. And just. Keep. Walking. In. Out. In…_ ]

* * *

Something that hadn't changed, at least, was her nonexistent social life.

In this case, it was for the best—Martha's few friends did notice her changing, but since she'd always been rather private Before, they didn't realize just how far some changes reached. Nowadays, she focused on refreshing and catching up on what she'd missed in medical school. She'd had plenty of practical experience thanks to the Year in some respects, but she didn't want to explain just how she'd grown rusty overnight on nephrology, when she'd aced the quiz not two months ago on the subject. She'd had a crash course in emergency medicine, obviously; but 'practical experience via doing an emergency tachometry' only raised more questions than not, and while she had good memory, she'd been more focused on the immediate threats, and negotiations, than on remembering theory such as the common indicators for anything involving leukocytosis.

And so Martha tried to keep going, one day at a time, trying not to feel frustrated when her year mates gave her weird looks for being even quieter than usual, or for not knowing the answer when she'd been known as one of the most studious of her year. Ignoring the whispers was harder than expected, though. [ _Especially when she'd had to deal with spies and bounty hunters and ravager gangs, and seen firsthand just how useful one murmur could be in the right ear._ ]

Especially the ever-so-annoying rumors, which she couldn't help but hear because it'd become instinct to keep an ear out, and apparently there was nothing more interesting to talk about, off shift. [ _,now._ ]

.

"I heard the accident might not actually have been an accident."

.

"I heard she was a witness to—"

"she's so quiet, wouldn't put it past her…"

.

"Give her a break, she's had a rough time ever since the gas leak fiasco, she doesn't need to hear it."

"No, but…"

* * *

Finding the rhythm she'd been in before her world had erupted into chaos wasn't as hard as Martha had expected, in some ways: she'd barely survived her first exam After, and scraped past the one after that, but hadn't had as many issues with academics as with…well, everything else. Being a doctor entailed an enormous emotional drain on top of everything else, and yet it'd been weeks and while she could converse with strangers at the drop of a hat, there were still days when just finishing the shift was a fight, when her cane had more pressure put on it than usual and she couldn't leave the house without a knife in her boot and a change of clothes in her bag 'just in case'. [ _Some habits were hard to break, simple as that._ _Unfortunately._ ]

* * *

Time passed, but it felt as if if did so grudgingly, like wading through dry sand, or quietly foraging a path in a riverbed.

* * *

She made a habit of going with Jack when she wanted a drink, even if it was only once a fortnight, and they still called each other every so often. Martha didn't want to risk it otherwise; she knew she could let her guard down and smile, and quietly commiserate, with him, and that felt loads better than hearing the griping of her former peers, or family. She had practice, now, interacting with strangers with familiar faces, but each time it still _ached_ , to see them so relaxed and so concerned with things that felt so…trivial.

One of the few times Martha had actually gone with her peers to the nearby pub, she'd ended up getting a single drink, not trusting her surroundings [ _or her nerves_ ] to get more than vaguely approaching tipsy, and quietly sipping at from time to time. Hearing Taylor griping about that last exam, and somebody else talking about how Doctor Green was in an unusually good mood, felt alien to her. She was used to splitting a bottle with the rest of an encampment while telling the story yet again, or using it to sterilize a needle in lieu of any other sort of disinfectant, not…this. Not sitting at a table, with some rather rowdy yearmates whose biggest concerns were passing the next exam, or relationship problems because they'd gotten into an argument with their girlfriend and their anniversary was coming up, or…

No, it was better to meet up with Jack, even if it was far, far less frequent.

Then, and only then, would the bottle would come out, and their black humor and drinking games as well. It practically became routine, after a few months: Martha'd arrive, and they'd switch off who brought the bottle and glasses. It'd be a flip of a coin, or whoever had a bad day, that decided the name of the game, and then off they'd go, pouring shots and getting increasingly creative about what mandated what.

Once, it was 'how many close encounters this week?' with a bottle of whiskey and Jack's team having a rough case meaning he emptied out a quarter of it; another time, it was tequila and Martha stoically took three shots in a row after a conversation led to them realizing that she was more armed than he was, on a daily basis. [ _At that particular moment, two ceramic blades, a small hatchet, a crowbar, and her sword cane, to his holstered Webly and F-S knife. He'd been suitably impressed._ ] Trading sardonic smiles, and stories of whose people screwed up the worst, and shots of…whatever, really, felt a lot better than hearing arguments in the background and trying not to flinch at the tone, or hearing doors slam and fighting every last instinct to tense.

Jack unwound and sometimes talked about how he'd been forced to watch his team's final hours while on the Valiant, and how the Toclofane hadn't seemed to leave him alone, sometimes… Martha, between shots, talked about how Andrei taught her some self-defense, and had adapted it for the most efficient way to snap a neck for when she'd come across the ones too far gone for what resources they had at hand, and how walking in broad daylight was still sometimes a fight.

Twisted, dark humor was their friend, then, in between shots and sympathetic slugs to the arm and careful knocks on the counter when one of them was obviously reliving an especially bad memory. Stories of epic screw ups, and people's faces when first faced with the smell of decomposition and corpses; of how during the Year, the madman had been enough of a tosser to erect statues of himself, right by the bigger shipyards [ _with all the double entendres that inevitably came with it about compensating for something, thanks for nothing, Jack_ ], and "you know, they should change the 'death and taxes' thing to 'death and tax evasion', because there were some sneaky sods who were **_still_** _operating during the goddamn apocalypse_ ".

Or just morbid, everyday humor: like how Jack's team was being recognized by sight and even at a distance, because everyone griped about his driving —"I completely understand why" "Shut up"— but he was actually safer behind the wheel than Unsworth had been; and Martha let it slip that while the beat for 'Staying Alive' was suggested used for CPR, the old timers [ _and, more recently, she as well_ ] used 'Another One Bites The Dust' to keep on track for compressions; Jack, meanwhile, had plenty of stories of the newbies' look of horror the first time they had to deal with a gristly case, because really, what's some bodily fluids between friends?

And afterwards, she crashed on his couch and left early in the morning the next day, leaving a note and, sometimes, an experiment [ _from the kinder memories from the Year_ ] waiting in the refrigerator. Jack soon found he'd liked German oven pancakes, when Martha'd found the recipe Max had scribbled down after they'd talked about breakfast foods; and that apparently, his team thought his increased interest in Indian food wasn't related to his social life.

Suffice it was to say, it was a routine that served them well, whenever they had the time. Between that, and the phone calls, they weren't too surprised that the nightmares' frequency slowly eroded- not by much, but waking from a dreamless sleep once a week instead of once a month was still an improvement. It helped more than either cared to admit, especially because of the therapy problem.

Specifically, the lack thereof.

Because take two time travelers who'd seen the end of existence and came back from it, who'd been hunted and toyed with by a madman with unchecked resources and all of existence at his disposal; both of whom became used to keeping their cards close to their chest, if they weren't already, and…that's not conductive for therapy, simply put. Trust issues went deep for both of them, _especially_ towards outsiders who might one day use said information against them. Martha knew she was frustrating her therapist even now, but she didn't really care. [ _Part of her wished she could, sometimes, but then part of her itched to just run and_ _partofherwasstillscreamingandsobbingoverthedevastationthatneveractuallywas—_ _no._ ] So, no. Late-night drinking games and morbid humor and commiseration over being dealt a bad hand every fortnight or so sounded so much better. Especially when it was with a friend who'd sworn to secrecy with little more than a desperate look, who'd been forged in fire and literally smiled in the face of the madman responsible, who'd _understood_ and stuck by anyway.

.

Time passed, as it must. Some days bled into others, while a Tuesday took forever to stagger through, and Martha brushed her hair back, straightened her jacket, grabbed her cane, and carried on.

* * *

 **AN:** So, first off: school and life in general's been rough, so sorry about the slow updates, I've got other things on my plate.

Er...so, I'd promised a reader earlier on that Sherlock and Co. would show up pretty soon, but grrr *scowls at doc* plot and character arcs decided to multiply, and then some side tangents decided to become full-blown AUs [e.g. the Blue Pill, and another random thought's starting to go the same way] so I can't make any promises re: when exactly they'll show up. Sorry? On that note, Martha's the main character, so...make of that what you will. Specifically: she's going to have issues John wouldn't have to deal with [e.g. trying to become a doctor whereas he's already there, and got some experience under his belt]. Also, sorry if it doesn't read as being very friendly towards the Doctor right now; Martha's still dealing with the immediate aftermath, and healing.

If you think Martha's too OP, or slightly out of character, it's because:

a) I'm using a grittier-than-canon-showed version of the Year that never was,

b) she ran with people of all walks of life [as in, had dinner with former agents and shared a tiny boat with someone who she was pretty sure was a mercenary when the world wasn't ending],

and,

c) this is fic mostly self-indulgent, as seen with the sword cane. [Hey, Martha swore off guns, remember? Had to give her _something_ badass and of dubious legality.]

The 'Staying Alive'/'Another One Bites The Dust' thing is because CPR necessitates 100 beats per minute, and both songs have that same pace. The morbidity of the second one's equal parts black/morbid humor and the depressing reality that unless medic aid gets there stat, the odds of the patient making it are, sadly, very low, which is kind of the cherry on top of the 'be ready to break their ribs trying to save their life' thing.

I can also be reached on tumblr as mynormalisnotyournormal, and if I start to have issues re: yet another AU spawning off my notes, that's where I'll gripe before posting it, and I'm perfectly happy to answer any questions re: Blurred Lines


End file.
